by Witt, L. A.
Heart pounding and feet dangling over the emptiness below, I reached up for Daniel. He was on his stomach, bracing with his knee and his elbow, his lips pulled into a tight grimace. I was the heavier of the two of us, and blood loss had weakened us both. Worse, my two bullet wounds had ripped apart again, and just holding on like this was agony.
With one hand, I let go of his shirt and grabbed the ledge. Using gaps between bricks as toeholds, I inched up, my stomach on fire with every motion. He guided me, bracing himself on the slim lip of concrete and gripping my arm in both hands. We were both trembling, and he seemed as close to losing his grip as I was, so I had to move fast. As soon as I had enough of my upper body over the ledge, I heaved myself up, cursing as excruciating pain blurred my vision.
Daniel had gone from prone to kneeling to pull me up, and when I moved, we both lost our balance and toppled into a heap together, dangerously close to the edge. I landed on top of him, agony surging in all directions from the wounds in my gut.
Daniel took a breath, probably to speak, but quickly turned away and coughed a few times.
The caustic air burned my eyes and the back of my throat, but the freshly opened wounds dared me to cough. I pulled in enough air to ask, “You all right?”
He nodded. “How do you breathe in this shit?”
“You get used to it.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He coughed again. “What about you? You all right?”
I grimaced. “Been better.”
He looked down and gasped. “Shit, you’re bleeding again.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “Just . . . let me roll over.”
Carefully, we shifted positions, and with Daniel’s help I eased myself onto my back. The wounds burned and the muscles ached, but that familiar tingling assured me the nanobots were doing their job. Little fuckers had earned their keep tonight.
Daniel caressed my cheek. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I will be.” I put my hand over his and turned my head to kiss his palm. “I think we’re out of the woods, though.”
“Not yet.” He ran trembling fingers down the side of my face. “We still have to get down from here before daybreak.”
“We have time now. Just have to get down and get a cab.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You are aware we’re both covered in blood, right?”
I laughed, wincing as my wounded flesh protested. “Welcome to the Gutter, Daniel.” I paused, glancing down at our blood-saturated shirts. “We might be a little conspicuous, but people don’t ask questions down here.”
When skepticism drew his eyebrows together, I chuckled. “You’re in my world now,” I said with a grin. “Trust me. We’re good.”
He hesitated, but then smiled back. “Guess trusting you hasn’t failed me so far, has it?”
“No. No, it hasn’t.” I cocked my head and added, “I’m guessing you don’t feel the need to shoot me again?”
Daniel laughed. “No, I think I got that out of my system.”
“Well, thank fuck for that.”
I pulled him down to me. We still needed to get back to my place, but this was my turf. I was back in control. There was time for the nanobots to put me back together. There was time to escape what little sunlight would make it down this far.
At the very least, we had time for one long kiss.
Maybe two.
I SHUT my apartment’s front door behind me, then latched the half dozen locks that kept out the rest of the world.
Daniel looked around, taking in the Spartan, mismatched surroundings. His last memory of my living conditions was similar to the penthouse we’d just escaped, so this had to be a shock. It was hardly squalor or filth, just the kind of bland utilitarianism only the destitute could find comfortable.
“Sorry it’s not much to look at,” I said.
Daniel shrugged and turned to me. “Considering no one here is trying to kill me, I’m not complaining.”
We both laughed. “Well. Your father’s men won’t find us down here. You’re safe.”
“As safe as anyone can be with a vampire assassin in the Gutter, right?”
“Probably safer with me than anyone else. At least until the dust settles.” I paused. “When it does, I guess we can go our separate ways.”
“We can,” he said with a nod. “But, do we have to?”
“I . . .” I wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“Liam, I have nowhere else to go now.”
Earlier tonight, I’d have thought it karma to turn him out into the Gutter without shelter or a clue. But things had changed, hadn’t they?
“So, what do you suggest we do now?” I asked.
“Maybe we can work together,” he said. “We both want to help the people in the Gutter, and we both want to take the cybernetics companies down.”
“Well, I could certainly use a hacker with inside knowledge and connections. And I guess it—” I swallowed. “We’ll figure it out, I guess. But for now, you can stay as long as you need to.”
Daniel looked me in the eye and took a step toward me. “What about as long as I want to?”
“That depends.” I shifted my weight, not sure if I wanted to step back or step right into him. “How, um . . .” I searched his eyes. “How long do you want to stay?”
He came closer still, and I couldn’t remember how to breathe when he reached for my waist. “That’s . . . negotiable.”
“Is it?”
One more step, and he snaked an arm around my waist as my arms, moving of their own accord, wrapped around him. “I already lost you once because I fucked up. Tonight, I almost had to watch you die. I’m . . .” He dropped his gaze for a few long seconds before meeting my eyes once more. “I’m not ready to lose you again.”
“Even after why I was there?”
“Yes,” he whispered, running his fingers through my hair, not even flinching when they grazed the mod on my temple. “And I’m sorry. For everything.”
“Me too. And—” I moistened my lips, struggling to concentrate with the phantom taste of his kiss lingering in my mouth. “Thanks. For, you know, trusting me. To get out of there.”
“I had my doubts, but . . .” He shifted his gaze toward the mod, this time watching his fingertips trace its edge. A subtle smile, one I hadn’t seen in far too long, pulled across his lips. “It’s a little ironic, I guess. I never thought a mod would actually help me.”
I laughed, but my humor faded as I touched his face. “I never thought—” I’d see you again. I’d want to see you again. I’d still love you this much if I did see you again. The words didn’t make it past the tip of my tongue, though. Instead, I slid my hand into his hair and leaned in closer.
Hand still on the side of my face, half on flesh and half on metal, Daniel raised his chin. We inched closer, and when our lips nearly touched, we froze. My heart raced as we just breathed on each other, just touched each other. In spite of artificially honed senses that made me hyperaware of any movement within a ten-meter radius, I couldn’t have said which of us finally closed the distance. One second his breath mingled with mine in a sliver of space; the next, my lips were against his.
It was nothing like the violent, feverish kiss up against the glass in his penthouse. Slow. Gentle. Tender. Just like the last kiss we’d shared before it all fell apart. And, pulling him closer, I realized that—at least for tonight—everything between that kiss and this one didn’t matter anymore. It all made sense. The last five years had been a hellish, painful, bloody path leading us both back to each other. To this. We were far from anything like perfection, and maybe we’d never reach that point, but we were both alive and we were both here. That was as good a start as I could ask for.
I pulled back and met his eyes, trailing my fingers down his cheek. “I could use a shower,” I said. “How about you?”
God, it had been too long since he’d grinned at me quite like that, and it just about knocked my knees out from under me.
“I think a shower would be perfect,” he said, and kissed me again.
Hot, clean water was one of two luxuries I had in this rundown place—the other being obscurity—and in moments, Daniel and I were standing under a stream of that steaming, stinging water. Wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing and touching like we’d never been apart, we let the hot water slough the dried blood and Gutter stench and grudges off our skin.
We held on, touched, kissed, turned each other on until there was no turning back. I stroked his erection until he whispered for me to face the wall, and then he teased my entrance with two wet fingers until I pleaded with him for more. It had been forever since I’d wanted anyone this badly. Half a damned decade. No other man had ever driven me to begging.
Tonight, Daniel didn’t make me beg for long. He nudged my legs apart with his knee, and I bit my lip as his hand slid over my ass. When he spit on his palm, I shivered, fighting to keep from losing control before he’d even fucked me.
His lips brushed the side of my neck. Closing my eyes, I tilted my head, barely breathing as he kissed my neck and pressed his cock against me. It had been so long since I’d taken a man, so much longer since that man had been Daniel, and the sensation of his cock sliding into me was so intense my eyes watered. He moved slowly, so slowly. All the way in, almost all the way out, all the way to the hilt. If he was anything like he’d been when I’d known him years ago, he was being cautious for my sake. He didn’t want to hurt me, but I wanted the hurt, so I braced against the wall and pushed back against him. Daniel took the hint and took over; growling softly in my ear, he thrust into me hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “I’ve . . . missed this . . .”
“Me too.”
My sensory enhancements let me savor everything about him: The whisper of his lips brushing my neck. His heart pounding as he fucked me hard, hard, harder. My nerve endings on fire with the heat of his flesh against mine, and goosebumps rising wherever his breath rushed across my wet skin. I was exhausted in every way imaginable, aching from head to toe, but I’d waited too long for this. Without even knowing it, I’d been waiting for this, and I wasn’t ready for it to be over yet, no matter how much my body protested as we moved together, trembled together, fell to pieces together.
My orgasm built to the most deliciously painful intensity, but I held back, savoring this for one more thrust, two more, and on the third, I released my breath and surrendered. Daniel buried his face against the side of my neck. Even over the sound of my thundering heart and my roar of ecstasy, I didn’t miss the soft whisper that cooled my skin and preceded a deep, full body shudder as he came inside me.
Neither of us moved for a long moment, not until he rested a hand on my hip and pulled out.
I turned around and leaned against the damp, cool wall. Daniel sank against me, and I wrapped my arms around him.
“I didn’t expect this tonight,” he whispered over the shower’s white noise. “Any of it.”
I kissed his forehead. “I don’t think either of us could have predicted this.”
He said nothing. He just lifted his chin and kissed me gently.
I touched my forehead to his. “I love you, Daniel.”
“I love you, too.” He combed his fingers through my hair. “I don’t think I ever stopped, to be honest.”
With a cautious grin, I asked, “Not even when I showed up at your place with a gun?”
Daniel laughed, pulling back enough to look me in the eye. “Okay, maybe for a minute or two.” His expression turned serious, and he moistened his lips. “But after what you went through because of me . . .”
I smoothed his hair. “All of that’s over. Maybe if we work together, we can do something about the people who put everyone else down here.”
He nodded. “Maybe we can.” Sliding his hands around my waist, he pulled my hips to his. “For the time being, though, what do you think we should do with the rest of the night?”
“The night?” I grinned. “I’m a vampire, Daniel. We have the rest of the day.”
He returned the grin. “So we do.”
And as the sun rose above the Sky, and the Gutter’s yellow haze no doubt glowed a noxious early morning gold with whatever sunlight crept through the grates and fans above, Daniel and I toweled off and sank into my bed together. By now, his father likely knew we’d slipped through his fingers. More than likely, there was already a price on both our heads.
But Richard Harding didn’t know who he was dealing with.
Daniel and I were lovers again. We were allies.
Today, we’d rest in the safety of each others’ arms.
Tomorrow? Wheels would start turning. This was only the beginning.
The Sky was coming down.
From Dreamspinner Press:
Rules of Engagement and Rain
From Samhain Publishing:
Nine-tenths of the Law
A. J.’s Angel
The Distance Between Us and
The Closer You Get
Out of Focus
From Amber Allure:
Static
Ex Equals
The Changing Plans series:
Getting off the Ground
Infinity Pools
On The List
From Carnal Passions:
Cover Me, Trust Me, and Search Me
The Best Man
Noble Metals (coming soon)
From Loose Id, LLC:
With the Band
Writing as Lauren Gallagher
From Carnal Passions:
Between Brothers
The Next Move
Until It’s Over
Light Switch and
Reconstructing Meredith
From Champagne Books:
Disengaged
From Noble Romance:
Camera Shy
From Loose Id:
Damaged Goods
L.A. Witt is a M/M erotica writer who, after three years in Okinawa, Japan, has recently relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, two cats, and a three-headed clairvoyant parakeet named Fred. There is some speculation that this move was not actually because of her husband’s military orders but to help L.A. close in on her arch nemesis, erotica author Lauren Gallagher, who has also recently transferred to Omaha. So, don’t anyone tell Lauren. She’s not getting away this time . . .
Website: http://www.loriawitt.com
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: GallagherWitt
